The Brief

Orange County officials are taking control of services at the county’s signature mental health campus, a move that pushes out a nonprofit organization that was paid tens of millions of dollars in public funds to run it for the last two years.

The action terminates a three-year contract early and comes after a damning audit found the organization, Mind OC, failed to ensure proper staffing and effective outcomes of key services.

LAist obtained the audit, which has not been previously reported, through a public records request. It's the first audit of Mind OC’s management of the mental health campus — which began in October 2022. To date, the county has paid the nonprofit more than $38 million to manage services at the campus, according to county records.

Those services include substance abuse treatment and mental health crisis programs. The campus, located in the city of Orange, served some 3,500 people in fiscal year 2023-2024, according to data provided by the O.C. Health Care Agency.

The public-private effort was created pre-pandemic as county officials came under increasing pressure to deal with a very public homelessness emergency and high-profile incidents involving people experiencing mental health crises. The goal was to create mental health hubs where, regardless of your insurance status, people can find treatment.

The shift in operations at Be Well's Orange campus marks the second time the county has lost confidence in a contractor hired to execute their plan. The previous change in 2022 shut down substance abuse treatment services at the Orange campus for more than a year.

County officials say a change was needed

Veronica Kelley, director of the Orange County Health Care Agency, told LAist that the contract with Mind OC to run the campus will end Sept. 30. "What we don't want to do is continue down a road that we know is not going well," she said.

Kelley said that Mind OC did not meet its contract obligations to bring in funding from private insurance or other private revenue to help offset the cost of taxpayer-funded services. She also said it was costing the county twice as much to pay the nonprofit to run the campus as it would for the county to run it themselves.

"We have switched back to a model that we know works so that it is more efficient and that we can ensure directly that services are being provided in an effective and regulatory required manner," she said.

A spokesperson for Mind OC said the nonprofit has a meeting scheduled with county leaders on Wednesday and declined to make anyone available for an interview until after that meeting takes place. Their three-year contract to run the Orange campus had been set to run through next June.

Mind OC will continue in a more limited role at the Be Well campus in Orange, managing the physical property, according to a joint statement released Tuesday by Kelley and Mind OC CEO Phil Franks. Mind OC also has another lucrative county contract to run an even bigger mental health campus being built in Irvine.

The county health care agency intends to continue working with the onsite subcontractors, Exodus Recovery Inc. and HealthRIGHT 360, "to ensure continued high quality psychiatric crisis and substance use disorder services," according to the news release issued late Tuesday after questions from LAist.

Audit flags lack of training, questionable billing

An audit report from July and subsequent memo from Kelley to the O.C. Board of Supervisors notes 38 problems with Mind OC's management of Be Well’s Orange campus including concerns that lack of oversight could have led to “possible fraud.”

Kelley told LAist that the possibility of fraud was under investigation, and no conclusions had been reached.

Among the issues flagged in the audit:

• Inadequate staffing of crisis programs, which are run by subcontractor Exodus Recovery Inc. The audit notes "numerous occasions" of unanswered calls or instances where calls were rerouted to a call center in Los Angeles. 
• Duplicative billing for residential treatment claims by subcontractor HealthRight360. The audit also notes Mind OC's lack of "consistent and independent monitoring" of HealthRight360 to ensure appropriate billing.
• Failure to ensure subcontractor HealthRight360 provided appropriate services and procedures for treating substance use disorders. 
• No evidence that HealthRight360 employees completed the county's required annual trainings, including on substance withdrawal management. 
• No evidence that mental health providers at the campus followed up with clients after discharge to prevent relapses and link them to continued care.
• Failure to meet the goal of having 26% of the campus' services paid for via private insurance. Currently, according to the audit, revenue from private insurance makes up just 2.6% of the total, meaning public dollars are paying for the remainder.
• Failure to meet the goal, laid out in Mind OC's contract, to refer 95% of clients in the crisis residential program to a lower level of care. Only about half of these clients have been discharged to a lower level of care, according to the audit. 

In Kelley's memo to supervisors about the audit, dated Aug. 15, she wrote that she had taken a call earlier that day from Phillip Franks, Mind OC's CEO, who told her the subcontractor HealthRight360 "was 'not going to make it'” citing billing issues, poor staffing and poor quality of care.

"All of this should have been addressed and known about if [Mind OC] was fulfilling the requirements of the [contract]," Kelley wrote to the supervisors.

Kelley told LAist that following the audit’s findings in July, Mind OC submitted a corrective action plan to the county. She said the county was ending its contract with Mind OC for "convenience," not "for cause."

Vitka Eisen, CEO of HealthRIGHT 360, told LAist that she believed most of the problems flagged in the audit were the result of her organization having to work through Mind OC as an intermediary, instead of working directly with the county, as it does with other public agencies across the state.

"It's an extremely unusual relationship," she said of MindOC's role on the Be Well campus.

HealthRIGHT 360 began operating for the first time in O.C., on the Be Well campus, in December 2023. Eisen said, as a new provider in the county, they've had numerous questions about documentation and billing that would have been more easily answered by county health officials, but "we have to go to MindOC with questions," she said.

LAist reached out to Exodus Recovery Inc. by phone and will update this story if we hear back.

A homeless encampment in Santa Ana's Civic Center Plaza. The encampment was cleared in 2018 as a federal judge and others put pressure on the county to do more to help unhoused people.

(

Kirk Siegler

/

NPR

)

The backstory

Mind OC, which does business as Be Well OC, was launched in 2017 with the goal of creating several mental health hubs in Orange County funded through both public funds and private health insurance. The organization has had strong support from the O.C. Board of Supervisors, including Supervisor Andrew Do, who helped craft the concept in 2015 as a member of the board's ad hoc committee on mental health services.

Prior to the formation of Mind OC, county officials faced scrutiny from a federal judge for failing to provide adequate mental health services for unhoused people, and failing to fully spend mental health dollars in the county.

Mind OC, and the Be Well campus, which opened in Orange in 2021 as a public-private partnership, were meant to address those problems. Initially, Kelley said, the county ran the Orange campus, and Mind OC managed the property and security. Then, in October 2022, the county signed a contract with Mind OC to oversee all operations and subcontractors at the Be Well campus.

The following year, county health officials raised concerns about the campus' substance abuse treatment contractor Telecare Corp.

Shortly after those concerns were raised, the county shuttered Be Well's residential treatment program, run by Telecare, for more than a year until the county could find a new contractor.

HealthRIGHT 360 took over. The most recent audit from July found similar problems remain — for example, failing to provide required services and needed follow-up with clients after they're discharged.

This past June, the O.C. Board of Supervisors entered into another contract with Mind O.C. to build an even bigger mental health campus — 22 acres — in Irvine. The board approved $40 million in federal pandemic response money for the construction, and at least another $66 million has been provided through state and federal funds.

Kelley said the county's recent decision to cancel its contract with Mind OC only applies to its contract to manage Be Well's campus in Orange.

She also said the contract cancellation would not affect the separate contracts Mind OC has with O.C. cities to handle psychiatric and drug emergencies in lieu of armed police officers.

A volunteer with Wound Walk OC takes the vital signs of a man sleeping in an underpass in central Orange County.

(

Jill Replogle

/

LAist

)

Responses to the audit and contract termination

Michael Sean Wright, who runs the street medicine group Wound Walk OC and was briefed on the audit and contract termination by LAist, said it showed county officials hadn’t learned from the past.

He pointed back to a 2022 audit that revealed problems with Telecare's operations on the Be Well campus.

"We gave an additional millions of millions of millions of dollars and allowed the same lack of oversight to continue. Mind OC stayed with the keys and the checks," Wright said.

He added that despite Be Well's original promise of expanded substance abuse treatment services in O.C., it's still difficult to find detox and substance abuse programs for people who want them, many of whom are unhoused.

"Time is of the essence," he said. "There is no place that will take you at night."

Supervisor Katrina Foley said the county's decision to take over management of the Be Well campus from Mind OC was part of the "trial and error" that has come along with the county’s efforts to get mental health care to anyone who needs it, regardless of insurance.

"If something isn't working, we have to be willing to pivot quickly in this dynamic environment," she said.

"Making sure that people are trained and in compliance with rules and regulations and systems … that is something that the county behavioral health staff can do maybe better than a private nonprofit," Foley said.

Foley said the county had made "tremendous progress" since the time, in 2016 and 2017, when large encampments clogged the courthouse plaza in Santa Ana and stretched for miles along the Santa Ana riverbed. At the time, many residents in those encampments said they had untreated substance abuse and other mental health problems.

Per a court settlement, the encampments were cleared in 2018 in exchange for the county and O.C. cities agreeing to build more shelters and permanent supportive housing, and agreeing to connect unhoused people with mental health treatment.

"I'm actually very proud of the work that our county staff have done to build out the system of care, but it's an evolving process," she said. "We want to get this right before we complete building the much bigger [Be Well] campus in Irvine," she said.

A group of employees at the Los Angeles region’s homelessness authority says hundreds of frontline workers will face layoffs as L.A. County transitions funding away from the agency.

Staffers from the L.A. Homeless Services Authority, or LAHSA, wrote an open letter to the county Board of Supervisors this week, demanding that no county-funded workers be displaced.

Its members say the transition would hit workers and unhoused clients harder than county officials have acknowledged.

“ A lot of the workers are in this because we care and we want to help our fellow neighbors and don't want to see see all kinds of people homeless on the street,” Jacqueline Beltran, a LAHSA employee who signed the letter, told LAist.

County officials said they are committed to “clearing pathways to employment” for county-funded LAHSA workers within the new Department of Homeless Services and Housing.

“We are continuing to explore all available options,” new department director Sarah Mahin said in a statement.

Mahin said funding and staffing will be finalized in the FY 2026-2027 Measure A spending plan for the fiscal year that ends in 2027. The county released a draft of that plan last month. 

County authorities have said they would fully integrate the services performed by LAHSA into the new Department of Homeless Services and Housing by next July.

The transition

In April, the county Board of Supervisors voted to pull more than $300 million from LAHSA and create a new county homelessness department to administer the funds.

That motion also directed county agencies to consult with Service Employees International Union 721, which represents county-funded LAHSA employees, to try to keep them employed — or prioritize them for transition into the new department’s workforce.

But the LAHSA Workers Coalition said that’s not happening.

The group demands in its letter that the county halt all staffing reductions at LAHSA and argues the county has a legal obligation to protect the workers. The group is made up of employees represented by SEIU 721, but the union’s leaders did not cosign the letter.

The union did not immediately respond to LAist’s questions about it Thursday.

In February, an L.A. County report said the agency had 900 staff positions and nearly 200 vacancies. More than half of the positions were funded by L.A. County, according to the report.

LAHSA reported last month that it employed 686 people.

Demands

Last year, county voters approved the Measure A sales tax to fund homeless services and affordable housing. The ordinance says that contracts funded with Measure A revenue "must not result in displacement of public employees.”

In the letter, the coalition argues the county is out of compliance with that requirement and is urging the board to discuss the matter at its next meeting.

Mahin said Measure A does not prevent the county from restructuring programs but instead “protects public employees from being displaced by outside service providers funded through Measure A.”

The county is facing a deficit of more than $300 million in funding for homeless services, Mahin said, adding that it must make “difficult but necessary decisions about how we invest our limited resources.”

The workers coalition is demanding that existing LAHSA employees be transferred directly to the new department, instead of having to reapply.

They’re also asking the board for a full public disclosure of staffing cuts related to the transition.

In addition to the Board of Supervisors, the coalition sent the letter to several other county and state oversight entities, including the county office of the inspector general, the civil grand jury, the state auditor and the attorney general.

When Terri Huerta called local winemakers about a problem with a meandering vine at Mission San Gabriel in the city of San Gabriel, she thought she'd get gardening help. Instead, she sparked a revival of L.A.'s oldest wine.

Mission San Gabriel's 250-year-old grapevine, one of the oldest living vines in California, continues to produce grapes for the Angelica wine revival.

(

Brandon Killman

/

LAist

)

The vine in question isn't your typical grapevine. It's a 250-year-old beast with a trunk so massive two people can't wrap their arms around it. Because it served as the source for cuttings that spread throughout California's early vineyards, it’s now known as the Mother Vine.

For centuries, it just sprawled across the mission courtyard like some ancient, living pergola that refuses to quit, with no one taking any notice of the grapes flourishing each season.

But now, thanks to a group of determined local winemakers, that fruit is being transformed into Angelica, a sweet wine fortified with brandy that Franciscan missionaries made there in the 1700s — making it the city’s oldest wine.

A limited edition batch was launched Nov. 28 by the Angeleno Wine Company. There are fewer than 200 bottles for sale, and at $75, it's not cheap. But break that down by the vine's age, and you're paying 30 cents per year of history.

How it started

The collaboration began in 2020 when Huerta, director of mission development at Mission San Gabriel, reached out to the Los Angeles Vintners Association looking for help to manage the grapevine.

The association — a partnership among three L.A. wineries: Angeleno Wine Company, Byron Blatty Wines and Cavalletti Vineyards — sent winemakers Mark Blatty, Patrick Kelly, Jasper Dickson and Amy Luftig to assess the situation. They found something bigger than a courtyard cleanup project. They found grapes. A lot of them.

"The vine was full of fruit, and I told them it was just a nuisance every year," Huerta recalls. "They asked, 'What are you going to do with all this fruit?' and I said, 'I really don't know.'”

That's when the group offered to help take it off Huerta’s hands.

Grapes from Mission San Gabriel's 250-year-old grapevine used in the Angelica wine revival.

(

Courtesy of John Pryor

)

Wine history

Although the Napa Valley now reigns supreme as the region’s wine industry, L.A. once was the center for the entire state. Mission San Gabriel’s vine was planted by Franciscan friars after the establishment of the mission in 1775 to make sacramental wine to be used during mass. DNA analysis has since revealed its forebears: It's a hybrid of Spanish Listán Prieto grapes and native California Vitis girdiana.

This vine’s cuttings helped launch the many vineyards that began to crop up around the newly founded grape fields, which became numerous. By 1850, L.A. boasted over 100 vineyards. If you look carefully, even today, the city of L.A.’s seal has a bunch of grapes hanging at the top.

The official seal of the city of Los Angeles.

(

Courtesy city of Los Angeles

)

The wines were popular with fortune seekers headed north to the Gold Rush. The industry flourished until 1883, when an outbreak of Pierce's Disease destroyed thousands of acres of vines across SoCal. Urban sprawl replaced vineyards with housing through the mid-20th century.

Today, almost nothing remains of L.A. 's once-dominant wine industry — with the exception of the Mother Vine and a handful of its descendants scattered across the city.

Across from Union Station a direct descendant is still growing over tourist and vendor heads. It’s a 200-year-old vine at Olvera Street's Avila Adobe, the oldest standing residence in the city of L.A.

Storing up the grapes

The winemakers started picking the fruit at the Mission in 2020. But it wasn’t enough to make a substantial batch of wine, so the grapes were stored. For the past five years, the winemakers, joined with volunteers, have harvested the fruit each season, carefully packing it away.

In the meantime, they began to dig into mission records for mentions of grapes and winemaking. One day they came across a document from the 1800s, which outlined a recipe for Angelica, a fortified wine made from grape juice and brandy.

"Angelica is said to be made by mixing one gallon of grape brandy with three of grape juice, fresh from the press," it said. "It is a thick, sweet and strong drink, yet of very delicate flavor."

The fortification wasn't just about taste — it was a necessity. In an era before refrigeration, adding brandy preserved the wine, allowing it to survive California's heat and long journeys between missions.

Two of the winemakers, Dickson and Luftig, were especially interested. They’d been making wine from grapes grown locally in the SoCal region since 2018 at their winery Angeleno Wine Company, which produces everything on-site near Chinatown.

They became intrigued by the idea of recreating Angelica. Following the historical recipe, they pressed fresh Mission grapes and fortified the juice with brandy before fermentation. Then they used the solera system — a traditional Spanish method that blends wines across multiple vintages — aging the wine in oak barrels for years.

Initially, they made limited batches solely for the company’s wine club members, which quickly sold out.

This year’s Angelica is the group’s third batch but the first to go on sale to the public. It includes grapes that have been harvested from 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024.

The wine pours a pale cherry color and has a syrup-like consistency. The brandy comes through right away, caramel and warm spices with refreshing acidity cutting through the sweetness. It's thick, decadent and undeniably strong — a small glass (or two) is all that’s needed after a warm holiday meal.

The harvest

Harvesting the grapes doesn't look like the romantic wine country fantasy you see in magazines.

Instead of long rows of vines with grapes easily accessed, harvesters have to pick the fruit from below the canopy.

"Everyone has to bring ladders because we're picking like this," Dickson says, gesturing upward in the Mission’s courtyard. "We're literally placing ladders on ancient monks' tombstones to reach the fruit above the graves."

This year the harvest happened in October.

Volunteers harvest grapes at Mission San Gabriel for the Angelica wine revival project.

(

Amy Luftig

/

Angeleno Wine Co.

)

John Pryor, a volunteer, has done multiple harvests. He describes it plainly: "You're not in a vineyard. You're in a garden at a Catholic church. The vines are trellised 12 feet high and go on for a hundred yards."

For his daughter, 27 year-old Meg Pryor, seeing the massive trunk drove home what "old" actually means.

"Whenever we're there, I'm thinking, 'People were doing this a century ago, two centuries ago,'" she said.

John and Meg Pryor help harvest grapes from Mission San Gabriel's historic grapevine for the Angelica wine revival project.

(

Courtesy of John Pryor

)

Understanding who most of those workers were centuries ago means confronting some difficult issues. Huerta of Mission San Gabriel acknowledges the mission system relied on Indigenous labor, and the vine's hybrid nature suggests native plant knowledge may have contributed to its development.

But she doesn't shy away from the complexity.

"You can't tell Mission history without including all the parts," she says. "You can't tell one story without telling another story. Winemaking has always been a part of L.A. history. The grapes were brought by the Franciscans. They didn't just start here in California. They started in Mexico, so its complexity makes it interesting, but it also makes it controversial."

Going forward, Angeleno Wine Company plans to release a limited batch of Angelica as a seasonal offering each year, as long as the Mother Vine continues to produce fruit.

The Supreme Court has cleared the way for Texas to use a new congressional map that could help Republicans win five more U.S. House seats in the 2026 midterm election.

The decision released Thursday boosts the GOP's chances of preserving its slim majority in the House of Representatives amid an unprecedented gerrymandering fight launched by President Donald Trump, who has been pushing Texas and other GOP-led states to redraw their congressional districts to benefit Republicans.

The high court's unsigned order follows Texas' emergency request for the justices to pause a three-judge panel's ruling blocking the state's recently redrawn map.

After holding a nine-day hearing in October, that panel found challengers of the new map are likely to prove in a trial that the map violates the Constitution by discriminating against voters based on race.

In its majority opinion, authored by a Trump nominee, the panel cited a letter from the Department of Justice and multiple public statements by key Republican state lawmakers that suggested their map drawer manipulated the racial demographics of voting districts to eliminate existing districts where Black and Latino voters together make up the majority. For the next year's midterms, the panel ordered Texas to keep using the congressional districts the state's GOP-controlled legislature drew in 2021.

But in Texas' filing to the Supreme Court, the state claimed the lawmakers were not motivated by race and were focused instead on drawing new districts that are more likely to elect Republicans.

In November, after the panel blocked the new map, Justice Samuel Alito allowed Texas to temporarily reinstate it while the Supreme Court reviewed the state's emergency request.

The mid-decade redistricting plan Texas Republicans passed in August sparked a counter response by Democratic leaders in California, where voters in a special election in November approved a new congressional map that could help Democrats gain five additional House seats. A court hearing for a legal challenge to that map is set for Dec. 15.

The rest of the redistricting landscape remains unsettled as well. Lawsuits are challenging new gerrymanders in places like Missouri, where there is also a contested referendum effort. And other states, including Florida, Indiana and Virginia, may also pursue new districts prior to the midterms.

Last week, a federal court ruled to allow North Carolina's midterm election to be held under a recently redrawn map that could give Republicans an additional seat.

Another wave of congressional redistricting may be coming soon depending on what — and when — the Supreme Court decides in a voting rights case about Louisiana's congressional map. After the court held a rare rehearing for that case in October, some states are watching for a potential earlier-than-usual ruling that may allow Republican-led states to draw more GOP-friendly districts in time for the 2026 midterms.

Edited by Benjamin Swasey
Copyright 2025 NPR

Growing up in Whittier, tamales have always been part of who I am — whether from local bakeries like La Moderna, where my mother always orders the day after Thanksgiving, or our annual tamalada with family friends, where we churn out hundreds in slightly drunken assembly-line fashion.

Over the years, I've explored beyond the traditional Mexican versions: El Salvadoran styles from What's That You're Cooking in Orange County to the Chinese lo mai gai found at dim sum spots across the city. My pursuit of new tamal variations is relentless, especially this time of year.

So when I heard about a $27 lamb neck tamal in Venice, I had to know: could an elevated, chef-driven approach ever justify that price? Since a few other restaurants are also recreating the humble dish with a high-end approach, I decided to go and try them.

What I discovered was that these aren't replacements for traditional tamales — they're explorations of what happens when fine dining ambition meets this centuries-old form.

Si! Mon (Venice)

Si! Mon opened in 2023 in the former James Beach space, a collaboration between chef José Olmedo Carles Rojas and restaurateurs Louie and Netty Ryan, known for Venice-adjacent mainstays Hatchet Hall and Menotti's Coffee Stop. Si! Mon offers Carles Rojas' take on Panamanian fine dining, drawing on Panama's melting pot of Chinese, French, Spanish, African and Caribbean influences.

For the holidays, Carles Rojas is offering a $27 lamb neck tamal — a clear departure from the Mexican versions most Angelenos know. And while the price might cause some sticker shock, it’s worth considering what goes into it and how much food there is.

Wrapped in a banana leaf, the tamal uses a lighter, softer masa enriched with the lamb neck’s braising liquid. Rojas pulls the meat, tosses it with sofrito until it takes on a sauce-like consistency, then adds Indian-style quick-pickled dates for sweetness and olives for brine. Finally, the tamal is finished in Si! mon's wood-fired oven, adding subtle smokiness.

My verdict? After taking that first bite, I can tell you… it’s worth the splurge. One tamal is meant to be shared between two people, which partly explains the price point (though I had no problem finishing mine solo). I’ve had plenty of Central American tamales over the years — Salvadoran versions with their silky masa, Nicaraguan nacatamales loaded with vegetables and pork — but Carles’ take pulls out all the stops. This is a deluxe, bells-and-whistles vision: sweet, salty, and deeply savory all at once, comforting yet unlike anything I’ve tasted before.

Yes, it is a high price, but I’d say it reflects the time, technique and premium ingredients behind it.

KOMAL (South L.A.)

A Guatemalan-style chuchito tamal from KOMAL at Mercado de Paloma in South L.A.

(

Frank WonHo

/

Courtesy KOMAL

)

KOMAL is L.A.'s first craft molino (mill), founded by Fátima Júarez and Conrado Rivera, former employees of Michelin-rated Holbox, who opened this masa-centric counter inside South L.A.'s Mercado La Paloma. The name is Nahuatl for "comal," the traditional flat griddle used to cook tortillas.

I wanted to try the chuchito ($11), a regular menu staple at KOMAL. Júarez refers to the dish as a gift — both for the unwrapping it requires and the labor of love behind it. Each one takes more than 22 hours to make, starting with nixtamalizing heirloom corn to create the masa. (Nixtamalization, an ancient Mesoamerican process, involves soaking and cooking corn in an alkaline solution to improve its flavor, texture, and nutrition).

The result is a fluffy steamed tamal filled with tender pork and crowned with roasted pepper and tomato sauce, pickled cabbage and vegetables, and crema. The dish honors her kitchen team, most of whom are from Guatemala, and it's KOMAL's way of putting their heritage front and center on the menu.

KOMAL’s strawberry tamal dulce comes bright red and crowned with pineapple and fruit compote.

(

Frank WonHo

/

Courtesy KOMAL

)

Komal’s tamal verde at Mercado de Paloma comes stuffed with tender chicken and topped with zippy green salsa.

(

Frank WonHo

/

Courtesy KOMAL

)

Beyond the chuchito, Júarez is offering three special tamales as holiday pick-ups for Christmas and New Year's: a deep, complex tamal rojo filled with sweet corn and squash calabacita, a vibrant tomatillo-based tamal verde filled with chicken, and a tamal de leche made with oranges and strawberry jam, a sweet version that hints at the pre-Hispanic tasting menu they're developing.

After the holidays, these tamales will transition to appearing exclusively at Komal's planned ancestral and ceremonial dinners in 2026 — making this a rare chance to try them before they become part of a more formal dining experience.

Available by the half-dozen ($45) or the dozen ($90), they can be ordered for pick-up at KOMAL on Tuesday, Dec. 23, or Tuesday, Dec. 30.

Campesino Café at The Ecology Center (San Juan Capistrano)

Aaron Zimmer, head chef of Campesino Café at The Ecology Center, works within a unique constraint: everything on his menu comes from the 28-acre regenerative organic farm surrounding the restaurant. That includes the corn he grows, dries, harvests and processes into masa for his tamales.

For the winter season, Zimmer is offering two versions that reflect what's abundant on the farm right now. The shelling bean and cheese tamal ($21) features beans from one of four varieties they grow on-site — shelling beans are harvested before they're thoroughly dried, prized for their creamy texture and delicate, earthy flavor. The cooked-down beans are incorporated into the fresh masa with cheese, then topped with chili con queso made with pickled giardiniera from their summer harvest.

Campesino Café’s tamal duo pairs winter squash in walnut mole with a shelling-bean-and-cheese tamal topped with chile con queso.

(

Gab Chabrán

/

LAist

)

The winter squash tamal ($21) features squash finished with a walnut mole sauce. The sweet, nutty texture, combined with the squash's sweet, earthy flavors and soft, fresh-tasting masa, creates a highly multidimensional bite.

Both are wrapped in masa and steamed in corn husks, then topped with whatever's available in the larder at any given moment, such as freshly grown cilantro or pickled onion.

It's a hyperlocal, intensely seasonal approach that makes each tamal a snapshot of what the farm is producing — versatile, sustainable, and entirely tied to the land it comes from.